Cooking Class @ Hansar Bangkok

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Thailand’s cuisine is regarded by many people as one of the best in the world. Thais take pride in their national cuisine as Thai food is always made with a clever use of spices and fresh ingredients. So when in Rome, one shall do as the Romans do. We rolled our sleeves up and made some amazingly delicious dishes at a cooking class organized by Hansar Bangkok.

Meet our handsome coach, the sous chef at Eve, Hansar Bangkok’s starlet restauant. He was doing a demo while we looked and listened attentively.

We started off with Tom Yum Kung, the optimal representative of Thai gourmet.

Ingredients:

Fresh Giant Water Prawn – 5 pcs
Straw Mushrooms – 70 g
Hot Chilies (lightly crushed) – 3 pcs
Sliced of matured galangal – 6 slices
Lemon Grass – 6 stems
Lime Juice – 0.25 cup
Coriander – 2 stems
Kaffir Lime Leaf – 3 g
Fish Sauce – 3 tbsp
Chicken Stock – 3 cups
Chili Paste – 5 g
Carnation Cream – 10 g

Instructions:

Wash and devein the prans, remove the head but keep the tail intact. Bring a pot of chicken stock to the boil, add herbs for a few minutes until fragrant, add prawn, mushroom. Boiled until cooked.

Season with lime juice, chilies, fish sauce, sprinkle of kaffir lime leaves and coriander.

KampungBoy – serious at work

Guess which one is done by the chef and which one is our masterpiece? 🙂

It was an easy dish to prepare;  just chuck everything in and bring it to boil. We both breathe a sigh of relief. However, we were told that that was just the beginning! We will be playing level up!

Bring it on! Second dish was my favourite Green Curry with Chicken (Gaeng Keaw Wan Kai).

Ingredients:

Chicken – 80 g
Green Curry Paste – 15 g
Palm Heart – 30 g
Sliced Red Chili – 10 g
Thai Sweet Basil – 5 g
Palm Sugar – 10 g
Coconut Milk – 150 g
Kaffir Lime Leave – 2 g
Fish Sauce – 10 g

Instructions:

Sautee green curry paste with cooking oil over a medium to high heat. Stir regularly to prevent the paste burning.

Add chicken and continue to cook until the paste is fragrant. Seaso with fish sauce, palm sugar, salt and add coconut milk and stock.

Bring boil with reduce heat, add palm heart and simmer until cooked. Add garnish.

It was a difficult dish to prepare. I almost burned the green curry paste while attempting to sautee it till fragrant. Our coach had to intervene and lend a helping hand to salvage our green curry chicken.

Not too shabby huh?

Here comes our last dish – pad thai goong, playing on difficulty level 10.

Ingredients:

Rice Noodle – 70 g
White Prawn – 4 pcs
Egg – 1 pcs
Tamarind Juice – 10 g
Palm Sugar – 10 g
Fish Sauce – 20 g
Lime Juice – 10 g
Shallot – 10 g
Yellow Bean Curd – 20 g
Dried Shrimps – 5 g
Flat Chive – 10 g
Bean Sprout – 50 g
Grounded Peanut – 10 g
Chili Flakes – 10 g
Cooking Oil – 50 g
Turnip Pickle – 5 g
Peanut – 5 g
Tomato Paste – 5 g
Chicken Stock
Banana Flower – for garnish

Instructions:

Heat the oil with medium heat, add prawn and stir until cooked, add fresh egg and stir until cooked. Add dried shrimp, bean curd, turnip pickle, shallot and rice noodle. Stir until the noodles are cooked and tender.

Add fish sauce, white sugar, tamarind juice, chives and bean sprout then stir to mix well.

I’ll never underestimate an average looking plate of pad thai anymore. First, we had to make sure that the rice noodles were cooked al dente. Then it is not easy to pan fry a thin layer of egg crepe. The most difficult part was to stir fry everything in a small pan, while mixing everything well. Glad to say that we overcome these obstacles and achieve success 😀

KampungBoy fits very well onto the kitchen scene; with his chef uniform, glaring smile and hands holding a plate of pad thai.

It looks as good as it tastes.

Though the work is hard, we got to take time to enjoy the fruits of our labour. It was probably one of the best Thai meals I’ve had. Everything had the perfect amount of spices, tickling our taste buds.

Towards the end of the cooking class. we were presented with a certificate of excellence as well as a folder filled with Thai recipes. Hansar Bangkok does host cooking class for their hotel guests from time to time, just email them to check for availability.

There’s something about active participation in a cooking class at foreign land. It was fun, interactive and exciting! I’ve decided to sign up for another cooking class at Bangkok this coming June!

Next Up: MBK Mall Food Court

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